Blog – Page 4 – Robert Accettura's Fun With Wordage

Heartbleed and OpenSSL

Post date 4/9/2014
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Heartbleed

Heartbleed is a pretty nasty security bug. Thankfully it can be fixed by a quick package update (unless you’re mod_spdy among other culprits (this one got me briefly). Then for good measure revoke certs and reissue to make sure nothing is left to chance. Need to make sure everything built on OpenSSL is not impacted.

While at it, I made a few tweaks to SSL configurations to hopefully let more traffic us Forward Secrecy which is a step forward.

What’s disappointing is that security researchers rather than let vendors have a few days to update and push fixes decided to get a domain name and spiffy graphic then 0 day the internet. Not terribly professional.

Apple

iMessage Spam

Post date 12/10/2013
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And so it begins… iMessage spam:

Tags Apple, imessage, iphone

Photos

WTC Tribute In Lights

Post date 9/6/2013
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The view this evening

Tags 9/11, nyc, wtc

Google Hardware

Chromecast

Post date 7/26/2013
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Example of Chromecast mirroring.

Of course I couldn’t pass up a $35 gadget that plugs into my TV and connects to the internet. This is my weakness.

Installation was painless, plugged right into my receiver and the client app you install on your computer found it ASAP. A few minutes (I use WPA2 + MAC filtering) and it was connected to my network and I was streaming video. It looks like it has too main operating modes: mirroring (Hulu seems to use this), and playing from the cloud (which is how YouTube seems to work).

There is a noticeable lag between the video on my laptop and the video on the TV, however the video on the TV is rather good. Sound quality is also pretty good. I went into the options and choose the higher bitrate. So far it’s smooth and runs well.

Tags chrome, chromecast, Google

Photos

4th of July Fireworks

Post date 7/4/2013
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Some fireworks here in NYC. Had a decent view. Too bad I have yet to practice night photography with this camera.

Tags 4th of july, fireworks, macy's, nyc

Blog General Personal

Still Alive

Post date 3/26/2013
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Posting suddenly got very sporadic since I’ve been so busy. Going to work on getting it back to normal real soon.

Internet

ALBA-1 Cable To Cuba Is Live

Post date 1/21/2013
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Renesys is noting that ALBA-1, the mystery cable between Cuba and Venezuela is likely now online. It’s still strange how it’s being utilized (assuming what they are seeing is the result of the cable being active). More bandwidth will lead to more usage by more people. Information demands to be free, and people demand information. It’s only a matter of time. The groundwork has been laid.

Tags cable, cuba

Around The Web

Flu Virus And Humidity

Post date 1/21/2013
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This is a pretty interesting article about the Flu virus and humidity:

the researchers found the virus survived best at humidity below 50%, similar to the conditions found indoors in “a really heated building,” says Dr. Marr. “The virus is happy if the mucus droplet completely evaporates and leaves it floating around” in the air.

“It’s also fine in humidities above 98%, which you find in the rainy season in the tropics,” she says, where the conditions outside resemble the environment the virus finds in the body. “But in between, in a humidity of 50% to 98%, the virus doesn’t survive very well.”

If offices, schools and other places where people congregated were to install humidifiers and keep a closer eye on building humidity, would flu’s be less problematic? In theory it could actually save a business money to pay attention to the humidity in the building and keep employees from getting sick.